I'm putting the finishing touches on my first DIY NAS system and need some advice about choosing a boot device. The motherboard is a Supermicro X11SSH-F, which has a M.2 slot that takes a 2280 card and uses PCI-E 3.0 x2. It seems to me the best boot device would use this slot, but I'm concerned about compatibility. Supermicro has a reputation for being a bit finicky about memory, etc., and the only M.2 devices Supermicro lists as having been tested with this board are by Toshiba and start at 256GB. Because of budget & need, I am thinking more along the lines of 128GB, which is still probably much more than I need. I've been looking at the 128GB Intel 600p for $65 and the Samsung PM951 for $81 as possible choices.
But I worry about compatibility with OMV and the motherboard. As I understand it, the OS on the M.2 drive has to support UEFI. Also, as I understand it, OMV wants the entire drive to itself, so paying this much for 128GB of memory may be a waste.
One option would be getting a less expensive 120GB SATA drive. This PNY drive costs only $40, and there are several other choices in this price range.
The other option would be using a USB drive. These come in smaller sizes and therefore would save money. But I've read that OMV will wear out a USB quickly.
So what do you folks with more experience recommend?